Just came across today's post on Asymetrical Information regarding recent reports of deterioration of North Korean leadership. I started to leave a comment, but in my usual way I had too many words and decided a blog post would be better. Here I have more space. And she and her readers would probably not find my remarks either interesting or germane so I'll stick with a link instead.

Interesting post. Reports of cannibalism have been seeping out for a couple of years now, with Japanese journalists doing a lot of reporting. I often wonder how long North Korea can last until it completely implodes. I read whatever comes along about Korea because my tour of duty in South Korea raised my awareness of the country.

I can see how M.A.S.H. can be viewed as a thinly-veiled commentary on Vietnam, but I don't think most people would put that construction on either the movie or the TV series. After having served in the US Army Medical Service Corp, in Korea, all of 1966 and half of 1967, I was entirely taken by the film just a couple of years later. I can assure you that the not-too-military attitude of the doctors that I worked with was not too far off from the M.A.S.H. profile. Many of those guys were in effect drafted just as I was, but because of their professional training they were made officers rather than enlisted men, with "professional" pay, "hazardous duty" pay, and whatever other perqs Uncle Sugar could manage in order to pursuade them to serve. It made for good medicine, if not good military decorum. I served under a Captain who could not get a security clearance because he was a foreign national. Had there been a need for him to access certain confidential documents in the safe, a Spec-5 assigned as our pharmacy tech would have to open the safe for him!

The point of my comment, however, has to do with the attitude of (South) Koreans in 1966 regarding the Vietnam conflict, and also the line dividing their own country. These two topics were connected in the minds of many Koreans with whom I spoke.

I was shocked the first time I heard it, but after hearing it more than once I began to understand that Koreans regarded what we call "the Korean Conflict" as the sparkplug launching the Japanese economy as the economic engine of the Pacific rapidly being manifest at the time. Japan was the staging area for a good many US (or UN, if you prefer - that being the putative authority for our being there, then and now) military needs. Uniforms, food, storage areas, docks and whatever immediate support was needed for the US participation was furnished, at considerable economic advantage, by the newly pacified Japan, just a few years following WWII. Even when I was there, I think we may have been receiving supplies from Japan; reconstituted milk, for example, comes to mind.

Whether or not, or to what extent, any of this is true is beside the point. It was the thinking of Koreans at the time, undescored by a hatred of Japan that defies description in English. Prior to the Second World War, Korea had been dominated as a Japanese territory from the end of the Russo-Japanese War, 1915. During those years, the Japanese had treated Korea in a manner reminiscent of European Colonialism. Korean children had to learn and speak Japanese in school, people were required to change their names to Japanese names, historic artifacts of the country were collected and displayed in a National Museum, constructed for the purpose. But Korean young women were also transported across Asia to serve as sex slaves to the Japanese military, and their Japanese overlords treated Koreans with the same disrespect as Colonial subjects were by their masters. Again, how much of this is true is beside the point, although I have seen and read nothing to contradict the substance of it. That was the thinking of Koreans with whom I spoke.

At the time I was in Korea there were reported to be about 50,000 US troops stationed there. At the same time, interestingly enough, there were about the same number of South Korean troops stationed in Vietnam. There were so many Koreans in Vietnam that it was feasible for bilingual Koreans (Korean/English) to take assignments as translators in Vietnam. I heard reports of Korean taxi drivers going to work in Saigon in order to earn money to send home to their families. (We are witnessing the same phenomenon now, here, with aliens, both legal and illegal, coming to America to work, to live at what we imagine to be a "subsistence" level, while sending a significant amount of their earnings home to Africa, Mexico, Bangladesh or whatever third world country was their home. These are just a few about which I know personally from having employed them in my cafeteria.) And Korean soldiers assigned to Vietnam, of course, were the principle conduits of wealth back to Korea. In other words, South Koreans saw the Vietnam Conflict as their opportunity to flourish, in the same way that the Korean Conflict had aided Japan.

Regarding the DMZ and the division of their own country, it was clear to me that the notion of "Two Koreas" is a fanciful figment of the American imagination. My first reality check was in the form of a map, quickly drawn on a scrap of paper by a Korean X-ray technician explaining to me the location of Taejon. I had received a "permanent" assignment after a few weeks of OJT at the 21st Evac Hospital at Inchon, near Seoul. I mentioned that I had heard of Taejon, but I didn't know exactly were it was.
"Here, I can show you," he said.
Taking a piece of paper he sketched a line drawing representing an outline of Korea. Next he drew a line through the middle and said, "Here is DMZ..."
Bam!
Instantly, I understood something more than the location of Taejon. I learned that in his mind the word "Korea" meant the entire country, not what I had been thinking of as "The Republic of South Korea." It was one of those "aha" moments for me. I remember it to this day. And for the rest of my tour of duty I never imagined that the Republic of South Korea was anything other than a temporary political construct, largely a creation of the American imagination.

As time passed, I came to the understanding that were it not for the US presence in Korea, there would be a good chance that the South might invade the North. Politically, we have been fed the line that a possible North Korean invasion of the South was the reason for the Demilitarized Zone (odd designation, since it is one of the most heavily fortified pieces of geography on the map). That may be true, but it is only half of the truth, the other half being that the South may have been just as eager to invade the North to free them from their Communist leaders. The degree of hatred for Communism in South Korea was only matched by their hatred of the Japanese. And their willingness to take a stand for their beliefs was as strong as anyplace else on earth.

Regarding the post to which I am responding, this is an operative paragraph...

...I've always been rather surprised at liberals and basically isolationist libertarians who concede World War II, but offer Korea as an example of a morally questionable war. Dear Leader is doing his best to turn the entire country into a concentration camp; how is it morally questionable to have kept tens of millions in South Korea from having suffered that fate?

My response seems off-topic. But I offer it as another point of view from the vantage point of an old-fashioned "liberal" and conscientious objector who finds all wars to be morally questionable. My own take on Korea is shaped by the tail end of a discussion I caught on C-SPAN about a month ago. Regrettably, I don't know who was speaking or what the occasion was, but the man was clearly well informed. He was clear in his argument that the main stumbling block to a political solution to the challenge of North Korea was none other than the Republic of South Korea. A visceral dislike of both China and Japan causes the diplomatic result that South Korea refuses even to sit in talks with those other two important players in their neighborhood, even to discuss a way to deal with North Korea.

When I remember how much the population of South Korea must absolutely agree with that position, it makes me question whether "democracy" is really what we want to prevail in this situation.

Addendum:

The original link to that "Jane Galt" post vanished but the Wayback Machine captured it for the record:

I went to school with a fellow who had been in Naval Intelligence, stationed in South Korea, before matriculating. He didn't tell me anything classified or anything, but he did offer horrifying reports of what was going on in the provinces, including cannibalism, as the regime not only produced a horrifying famine, but used the distribution of food to crack down on provinces it considered troublesome.

That's why I've always been rather surprised at liberals and basically isolationist libertarians who concede World War II, but offer Korea as an example of a morally questionable war. Dear Leader is doing his best to turn the entire country into a concentration camp; how is it morally questionable to have kept tens of millions in South Korea from having suffered that fate?

Oh, one could argue that US intervention prolonged the regime, or made it worse. But one can look at the first few decades of communist regimes in nearby countries to see that even if the regime hadn't lasted so long, the time it did last would have been plenty horrible enough that it should at least induce a few qualms about abandoning the South Koreans to such a fate.

Yet it doesn't seem to. I was an enormous fan of M*A*S*H when it was first on the air, though I was far too young to grasp the political implications (I think I was nine when the series ended.) Now, of course, I realise that it was a thinly veiled metaphor for the Vietnam war: American boys and innocent asians being killed by a bunch of power-mad brass waging war for the fun of it.

I often wonder if Alan Alda--or any of the other producers, directors, writers or actors of either the movie or the television series--ever looks at the news coming out of North Korea and thinks "Yeah, I guess maybe we were wrong about that." I doubt it, though.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

This is a Dan Quayle joke I noted at my old blog when Boris Yeltsin died in 2007.
The inanity of the Trump presidency gives me flashbacks to crazy moments like this. I'm thinking specifically of a daisy-chain of communications directors and others speaking for the president, working hard to iron the wrinkles out of his crazy words and incoherent thoughts. Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007)

April 24, 2007I will leave it to others to write obits for the late first president of modern Russia.To mark his passing, here is a great story I remember from about fifteen years ago.The first President Bush on a visit to Russia and was talking with Mikhail Gorbachev. They were discussing how to pick smart men to work with as they did their jobs. Boris Yeltsin was at the time second in command under Gorbachev."When I'm looking for someone to work," said Gorbachev, "I want someone with a quick mind, someone who can solve problems in a hurry.""That sounds right to me," said Bush. "How do you find someone like that?""Well one of the things I do is ask them a riddle and see how long it takes for them to come up with an answer.""Riddle?" said Bush. "Why that's so easy. I never thought of that. Give me an example.""Sure," said Gorbachev. "How about this: Sisters and brothers have I none, but this man's father is my father's son. Who might that man be?""Hmm..." said the president. "I guess that means you are talking about yourself. If If you have no siblings but your father has a son, then you are the only one it can be....right?""Exactly," said Gorbachev. "It works every time. The smartest people always get the answer."

So the president comes back to Wasington and among other things is sharing this bit of information with his Vice-President, Dan Quayle. He told him that Mikhail Gorbachev and he were talking and Gorbachev told him how to find the smartest man in Russia."Really?" said Quayle. "How so?""Easy," said Bush. "Just answer the question to a simple riddle: Sisters and brothers have I none, but this man's father is this man's son.""...and Yeltsin got it right?" said Quayle."He sure did," said the president. "He's the smartest man Gorbachev found.""Amazing," said Quayle. "I can't wait to ask that riddle to someone."

Later Quayle met a staffer in the hall and said, "Excuse me. I would like to ask you a riddle and see if you can get the answer.""Sure,"said the staffer, "Go ahead.""okay, here goes: Sisters and brothers have I none, but this man's father is my father's son. Who do you think this man might be?""Hmm.." said the staffer. "I guess it must be you.""No, silly," said Quayle. "It's Boris Yeltsin!"

Monday, February 26, 2018

One of yesterday's guests on C-SPAN Washington Journal was David Brody, author of "The Faith of Donald J. Trump." I watched most of it via this link and was once again amazed at the degree of compartmentalized thinking required for many self-identified Evangelical Christians to support this president. In nearly all cases, that support has more to do with apologetics than actual endorsement of what he says or does, sifting otherwise straightforward content through a filter, sifting out the parts charitably called his "faith" or "beliefs" despite words or actions clearly the opposite. Even the most egregious non-Christian behavior, that multi-layered report of his affair with porn star Stormy Daniels receives a "mulligan" from one spokesman for that community.

Brody is a very smooth talker, carefully avoiding saying that the president is a good Christian while simultaneously arguing that all he does must be driven by his "faith." That faith is derived, of course, from his early experiences as a devotee of Norman Vincent Peale, the "Power of Positive Thinking" preacher who was one of the fathers of what came to be the prosperity gospel.

As the program progressed I realized that Trump's version of faith is very much like his lifelong experience in real estate and other business ventures. Like nearly all good businessmen he minimizes risking his own assets while getting maximum leverage from borrowed assets. That, after all, is the very definition of all huge success stories. The reason any company sells stock is to exchange part of the assets of the company (brand reputation, expectation of growth, equity) to others. The name of the game is expectation of reward. The same impulse that tempts someone to buy a lottery or raffle ticket is also responsible for making private investment or buying publicly traded stock -- they expect the ROI (return on investment) to be greater than the risks involved.

Regarding faith, Christianity offers the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of forgiveness of sins. Even after a lifetime of sinful living, it is possible for even the "worst of sinners" to have all that lifetime of sin rectified by confession, which leads to absolution of all those sins. That is the ultimate teaching, a foundational bedrock, repeated endlessly by preachers all over the world.

That said, it's clear (to me at least) that belief, coupled with a firm dedication to Think and Grow Rich, allows this man to yield to any impulse, risk any asset, extending his credit to the max -- knowing that in the end all will be forgiven. In some versions of this heavenly arrangement, one can even expect that forgiveness to come post-mortem.

With all assets one must take every measure and apply due diligence to insure their protection. In the case of earthly contracts the law furnishes thick layers of protection. And like all good businessmen, this man is a past master at navigating -- with the assistance of the best legal advisors money can buy -- the byzantine complexities of the law. Sometimes it's not even necessary to use actual money. Why waste money when non-financial quid-pro-quo works just as well? That opens a wealth of possibilities including good job assignments, introductions to contacts that may lead to greater rewards, "accidental" peeks behind curtains and many more, not to mention threats, payoffs, even blackmail. In the words of Jesus Himself "...be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."

To that end his contracts are air tight, laced together with all the strength that good Non-Disclosure Agreements provide.

Make no mistake about it. This president is nobody's fool. He is to American politics what avian flu is to public health. At this point, just past one year of his first term, all the indications are that he will likely finish his term without any serious challenges from Congress. The Mueller investigation is in progress but even if he presents evidence of criminal activity in spades the president will get another mulligan. If both houses of Congress become majority Democrat as the result of this year's midterm elections, the damage already inflicted on the institutions of government have been deep and serious. Suggestions of bipartisan cooperation have become politically taboo. Powerful private sector influences thanks to the impact of money on politics ("money is speech" -- SCOTUS Citizens United), the many "safe seats" in the House thanks to gerrymandered districts. All these realities, together with our economy's realization of Ike's Military-industrial Complex, leave me feeling very pessimistic at this writing.

I wanted to talk briefly about something that's been worrying me re: the Parkland kids, and that's making sure that we all remember that: - they're teenagers - they're bound to make mistakes - they don't owe anyone anything - we shouldn't expect them to fix everything 🙄.

I know we all hope that Parkland was the straw that broke the camel's back, but we need to make sure we remind ourselves that, at the end of the day, these kids are just that: kids. The fact that they're rising up to fix a broken system is more fucked up than it is inspiring.

The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas shouldn't be working night and day, fighting their lawmakers and pushing for gun reform and a ban on assault weapons, because that should've been done already. You older generations, lawmakers included, failed them.

For those who don't know, I'm 23 going on 24 in May. I was in the 4th grade when the assault weapons ban expired, and have grown up in a country where mass shootings were the norm and little has been done to curb any other kind of gun violence. You failed me, too.

But back to the Parkland kids, these are the things we all need to keep in mind, especially those of you who have had years to fight for a fix to gun violence, haven't done enough, and now expect the MSD students to save the world:

I wanted to talk briefly about something that's been worrying me re: the Parkland kids, and that's making sure that we all remember that: - they're teenagers…

Keep in mind that the Parkland kids are teenagers, and beyond that, human beings. Aside from dealing w/ the trauma of surviving a mass shooting, they are bound to make mistakes and say or do the wrong thing at some point. They're not perfect, and nobody should expect them to be.

The Parkland teens have amassed quite the following since the shooting, with @Emma4Change well over half a million followers. But she's only 18, and the rest of them are teenagers as well. I know that with a large following comes a responsibility, but go easy on them.

I think we're all aware of how popular call-out culture, drag culture, and cancel culture are online. As soon as someone slips up, everyone on Al Gore's internet swoops in to drag them to hell and back and declare them "canceled" aka "you messed up and now you're irredeemable".

Don't do this with the Parkland teens. Make sure that, if and when they slip up, say or do something wrong in the future, or aren't as inclusive as they could be, you don't lash out because you expected them to be perfect. Go easy on them. Be kind.

I think we're all aware of how popular call-out culture, drag culture, and cancel culture are online. As soon as someone slips up, everyone on Al Gore's internet swoops in to drag them to hell and back and declare them "canceled" aka "you messed up and now you're irredeemable".

And don't expect the Parkland teens to fix it all. They shouldn't be fighting this fight but since they are, they can succeed or fail as much as either may occur. You'll deal, because if you're 35-40+ then this fight was yours to win in the first place if we're being honest.

Don't expect the Parkland teens to take up every political fight and fix the society that Y'ALL decided to let flop like Xtina's Bionic album. I have seen too much, over the last few years, of older people expecting us young people to fix y'all's mistakes. That's bullshit.

What every adult needs to be doing, especially those of you in your 30s, 40s, and beyond, is amplifying the work of the Parkland students while also making sure that you're doing everything you can to make up for the fact that they even have to do this in the first place.

TL;DR: Let the Parkland kids be kids. Let them be human. Let them express their full range of emotions as they cope w/something most of us have never experienced, & let them make mistakes. Don't doubt them, but recognize that they alone can't save the world & shouldn't have to.

And don't think the Parkland kids are your outlets to push whatever cause you want to push and get mad when they don't. I don't doubt that they care about a wide range of issues other than gun violence, but don't expect them to have the energy to fight a million fights at once.

The young people of Parkland + Marjory Stoneman Douglas are strong, intelligent, and inspiring. But the fact that we even know who they are is proof of failure by our lawmakers and older generations. The shooting shouldn't have happened and their loved ones should still be here.

I know y'all think "the young people will save us" is a compliment, but it's really not. The fact that we're saddled with a burden that was supposed to be YOURS to carry isn't fucking fair. You do not get brownie points for supporting us in a fight that was yours to finish.

If you’ve been fighting then I’m obviously not talking about you so please don’t #NotAllOldPeople me.

Got it. I hope they all remember a lot of us older folk have been fighting this fight for many years, please don't hate us all.

And to all of the adults saying “well your generation didn’t show up in 2016”: Fair! Youth voter turnout isn’t great. But also, good job ignoring everything else I said in my thread so you could blame millennials, yet again, for not showing up to fix y’all’s mistakes.

And let’s not act like y’all don’t insult and ignore The Youth™ every other day of the year over the way we act or the things we like, along with calling our intelligence into question, and are only praising us now that we might finally “save the world”.

This is The End™ of this thread for now. It wasn’t an invitation for you to fight about generation wars in my mentions, it was a PSA to keep in mind going forward as you support the Parkland teens and youth activists. Don’t fight with me, I won’t entertain you.
/fin

While y'all are here: midterms are coming up, and elections happen even when we're not thinking about them. Use http://iwillvote.com/ to either make sure you're registered to vote or register to vote, find your polling place, and make sure you bring what you need to the polls.

I wanted to talk briefly about something that's been worrying me re: the Parkland kids, and that's making sure that we all remember that:

- they're teenagers- they're bound to make mistakes- they don't owe anyone anything- we shouldn't expect them to fix everything

Sunday, February 25, 2018

I AM A PROGRESSIVE GUN OWNER AND I FEEL I HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO SPEAK OUT

I believe that gun control advocates, and I am one of them, would greatly benefit from understanding guns before yelling at the N.R.A.

This is a photo of my semiautomatic Benelli 30-06 caliber rifle. It comes standard with an internal magazine that holds four rounds. The caliber of this rifle is actually larger than a typical AR 15, although AR 15's do come in more than one caliber.

An AR 15 does not mean "Assault Rifle." It stands for "ArmaLite Rifle." and is just a class of firearms that are absolutely identical in terms of how they operate mechanically to my Benelli. They are small caliber with high velocity, relatively speaking, incredibly simple to operate, and can be shouldered and carried, and most importantly, fired with ease- the barrel doesn't get all that hot. The most important differences are as follows, IMHO...

1. The AR 15 looks like a machine gun that Rambo would use to mow down 150 bad guys in a few minutes while pounding his chest like an ape. It is not. It is just like my rifle, except...

2. It has a handle. Yup, that is what many "Assault Rifle" bans focus on when they make them illegal to own. Marco Rubio is a moron, but he made a valid point, while acting like a heartless dope, during the CNN debate the other night. He pointed out that there are some 2200 rifles that operate mechanically the same way, but most only focus on about 200 (these are his numbers). Here's the thing... He is correct. Handles are used as a reason to ban some rifles. And that leads to the fact that...

3. An AR 15 is commonly fitted with large capacity magazines, sometimes referred to as "Banana Clips," as utilized in the AK 47 (magazine is the proper term). That is what we need to be discussing- not the gun, but rather the number of bullets they can fire before you need to swap out magazines, and the fact that an AR 15 can be reloaded in just seconds. That and...

4. The caliber of the bullet. It is just a measurement in increments of the standard inch in diameter. A .223 round, which is common in AR 15's, is a reference to it being just under a quarter of an inch wide. My Benelli fires a round that is considerably larger. This means the AR 15 with a .223 round has less recoil which also means more bullets fired in rapid succession than my Benelli.

What gun control advocates need to understand is that my Benelli, if it had a 30 round magazine, would be just as deadly, if not more so, than most AR 15's, but it doesn't look scary, so most folks don't even consider it problematic. The Benelli is simply more accurate over a greater distance than the typical AR 15, however the lighter .223 round tends to tumble upon hitting flesh causing massive, gaping wounds. Internal organs are literally turned to mush. They are deadly in different ways.

These mass killers likely gravitate to the AR 15 because it makes them feel like they have compensated for their undescended testicles with a bazooka-sized penis extension. It looks badass. It looks dangerous. It looks intimidating, and that is a psychological issue- not an issue that pertains to how a gun operates. If you ban them, these deranged idiots will just get a rifle like my Benelli, and shove a massive magazine into it with four more in their pockets when they go berserk.

Rubio is an N.R.A. beholden whore- have no doubt about that fact, but he made a valid point while the gun control folks in the audience went batshit on him. Rubio was asked, "Why not start with those 200 guns that look scary?" (Paraphrasing here) What he said was actually correct. You would need to ban a hell of a lot more guns to wipe out all of the weapons that can be adapted to shoot a gazillion rounds in a few minutes.

My Benelli is one of those rifles.

It comes down to something very simple here. If Americans choose to ban AR 15's they have NOT solved the problem. It is the damn magazine capacity. Period.

The reason why the Benelli comes with a four round magazine is that it is a hunting rifle. That is why it has a scope and that is why it doesn't come with a 30 round magazine. If you need that many bullets to bag Bambi, then you have no business going anywhere near a trigger- nevermind the fact you will destroy the very meat you are seeking to acquire from what it is you are killing.

And all guns are meant to kill. There is no gun that was not designed for that purpose. They are just a tool, but they are a tool for causing death.

Many of us just look ridiculous when they debate guns with Fright-Wing gun nuts. Many don't possess any knowledge of firearms, or worse, they possess inaccurate information, and that makes a freak like Ted Nugent laugh his sick ass off at our ignorance or naivete.

So bring on better background checks. In many states it remains legal to pawn off your grandpa's arsenal to anyone, with zero background checks, after he dies.

That is nuts.

Domestic violence offender? No worries... Just don't ask any questions, and the seller skates without any legal consequences.

But if we are going to discuss the mechanics of how firearms function, then we need to get over our basal ganglionic reaction sparked by our reptile brains that tells us to ban weapons based upon how they trigger a fear response visually, and buckle up and get down to the real issue- and that is restricting magazine capacity.

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About Me

A child of the Sixties, born and reared in the South, I was de-provincialized by college, movements of the day and military conscription. Following military and school my working career spanned four decades in the food business from which I retired in 2002. I knew that in management I was supposed to become Conservative (which meant Republican) but I was not cut from the right fabric and I remained an old-fashioned Liberal. Blogging is my hobby in retirement, providing a scrapbook of interests and a platform for an old man’s pontifications. My first blog, Hootsbuddy's Place, was an eclectic mixture of content which ended in 2009 followed by two group blogs both of which have since become inactive. Facebook and Twitter seem to be replacing blogs. My post-retirement work has been in senior care beginning with five years in an independent retirement community followed by part-time work as a non-medical care-giver.